


Batgirl and Catwoman

by lightsaroundyourvanity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femme Fatale, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaroundyourvanity/pseuds/lightsaroundyourvanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah sees Bela at an estate sale, but Bela has other conquests on her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Batgirl and Catwoman

It's been six months since Sam Winchester and his brother left, and Sarah is finally starting to feel like her life might actually go back to normal again. It took days for her to forget the press of his lips. Weeks for her to forget the terror of seeing what goes bump in the night and waking up at two in the morning, jolted awake by the echoes of howling winds. Months for her to stop questioning every painting that came through her father's business, to stop scrutinizing every new piece in a way that seemed more off-putting than thorough to clients.  

She wonders if it will be years before she stops feeling the faint pump of blood in her veins, the susurrus shadow of a need to go out and _do_ something, something reckless, something with the bite of adventure. Or if maybe that will never go away. If maybe that was just something that woke up inside her the night she came face to face with a ghost. 

Sarah pushes those feelings down. She's restless; she's not crazy. She knows how close a call it was for her with the Telesca painting-- and that was even with Sam and Dean at her back. She's not clueless enough to think she could actually strut into the night and make it as a junior league ghostbuster. So she shrugs off that hint of yearning, and she goes to work, and she makes small talk and deals and goes to estate sales wearing lipstick and heels, and when she feels like she might pop, she goes to the gym down the street from her apartment and practices roundhouse kicks in a krav maga class where the opponents are aggressive instead of deadly and surreal.

But it's still there, lurking like a nudge. It reminds Sarah of being a child and looking for fairies in the woods behind her family's country house, and really, truly believing they could be behind any corner. She believes now, as sanguine as when she'd leave out milk and find it missing the next morning (evaporation was a concept she would learn in later years.)

Maybe it's that kernel of knowing that kicks Sarah when she spots the woman. Slender, elegant, with honey-brown hair and slim, endless looking legs, she is poised before a display case, and looks calculated and absorbed. Her left hand cups a flute of sparking wine. A charm bracelet tinkles at her wrist, delicate and glimmering, but vaguely out of place. She glances around the room, quickly, and Sarah intakes sharply and looks elsewhere before she can be caught staring.

After a moment she chastises herself. This is _her estate sale._ Well, it was the Jeanty family's estate sale being carried out through her father's business, but _that aside_ she was still a person of authority in the room. She didn't need to be darting away from the gazes of clientele. If anything, she ought to be staring, to take their measure.

Sarah looks back at the woman, and she's still looking straight at Sarah, and all pep talks are thrown to the wind, because she can feel the warm creep of a blush when the woman lifts one corner of her finely carved mouth in a smirk. She still hasn't looked away, and Sarah finds that now neither can she. 

It's being tongue-tied at a beautiful girl, but it's also something else, something more, that raises Sarah's hackles even as it piques her curiosity. She wants to get a better look at what the woman was examining, she tells herself. If she also wants to get a better look at the woman, that's easy enough to ignore right this second.

There's a flash of surprise in the stranger's when Sarah approaches, but she damps it quickly down, and offers her hand. "Bela Talbot," she says. She's British.

Sarah takes her hand. "Sarah Blake," she murmurs, and they shake, but Sarah hardly feels it. Instead, she turns suspicion over in her head. "I curated this sale," she adds. "May I ask what has caught your interest?"

"Mmm?" Bela looks surprised, as though they hadn't spent the last forty five second staring at one another. As if Sarah hadn't seen the riveted way she'd been looking at the case. It does nothing to quell Sarah's suspicions. She raises her brows, and Bela laughs. "Oh nothing, really." She sounds charming and deprecating. "Some trinket is all." Her glance bounces over her shoulder and then back to Sarah. "You curated this evening?" she asks, smooth as butter. "You must let me get you a drink then, Sarah Blake."

"I don't--" Sarah begins, but Bela is already gliding away through the crowd. Sarah looks inside the display case and her sigh catches in her throat.

Lying on the square of black velvet is a charm bracelet, glimmering and delicate, but vaguely out of place.

"Hey!" Sarah yelps and turns, but Bela has disappeared in a sea of people. "Hey, stop! Wait!" She starts pushing through the crowd, scanning for long legs and bare wrists, but there's nothing. Bela is gone. Sarah runs to the front entrance and looks wildly around, but still sees nothing. She feels herself start to deflate, and then somebody catches her attention: The valet. "Did anybody come out through here?" Sarah asks, and he shakes his head, and Sarah picks up again. She's willing to bet that Bela doubled around and dodged through the back-- and in that case Sarah knows exactly where she thinks the other woman will emerge. She's spent enough time in this building to know it well.  

Sarah races through the side yard and sure enough, she sees Bela, clicking shut the door to the fire exit. Her bracelet is gone, but then, Sarah knew it would be. Sarah crosses her arms over her chest and clears her throat noisily.

Bela looks up, and she spots Sarah, and this time, she can't even be bothered to hide her astonishment. She lets it flood her features and part her lips. "How did you--" Bela's eyes suddenly narrow. "You're a hunter."

"What?" Sarah's voice turns up dangerously close to a squeak. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh please." Bela is pulled together again, and confident. She takes a step closer to Sarah. "Your cover's blown, sweetie. You must be a hunter, to have seen through that charm." 

"What?" Sarah squeaks again.

Bela pauses. She's still smiling, in a puzzled, quizzical way. She cocks her head to one side. "Am I missing something? The bracelet I left behind--"

"Sloppy heist move, by the way," Sarah interrupts. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice that? This must be your first time."

"Hardly," Bela scoffs. "But you-- you're not a hunter, but have you ever experienced anything... unusual? Paranormal? Something that perhaps you can't explain?"

"What, like ghosts and goblins crap?" Sarah retorts, a little too sharply.

And Bela's smile grows. "I thought so. That explains everything." 

"Are you going to start speaking english any time soon?" Sarah snaps. "Look, whatever you took, just give it back and I'll let you go."

Bela doesn't move. She doesn't speak. She purses her lips. "I can't," she says finally.

"What is that supposed to means?"

Bela's eyes flick to the ground. "You may not be a hunter, but you must have come across one or two. The bracelet I left was spelled. It deflects attention, unless you know what to look for. In this case, supernatural theft. You should have looked right past it after I left. You didn't. That gives you away."

"Why should I trust a word you're saying to me?" Sarah asks. Bela's taken another step towards her, and Sarah feels hers stance shift, a little more defensively.

"Because I actually _am_ a hunter," says Bela. "Because people's lives are at stake. And because ten minutes ago, you couldn't stop staring at my legs."

"I was not!" Sarah protests, feebly, since she absolutely was. She shifts uncomfortably. "I don't see what the has to do with anything."

"Let's just say I'd hoped it would make you more... _amenable_ to my efforts," Bela says. There's a teasing edge to her voice, and when did she manage to get so close? She stands toe to toe with Sarah now, and Sarah catches a whiff of perfume, something warm, amber and roses.

"Well, it didn't," Sarah says, but even she can hear her voice quaver. Bela can too, because the smile never drops off of her face, and her eyes rake over Sarah's features, careful and slow. 

"I'll bring it back," Bela says softly. "I just need it for-- something. Something important." Bela reaches over and pushes a lock of Sarah's hair out of her face. "Perhaps when I return, I'll let you buy me dinner."

"You're a hunter?" Sarah asks. She sounds dazzled, because she is, and Bela obviously takes note.

"Sweetheart," she says, in her lilting British accent, "I'm _the_ hunter."

And then Bela kisses Sarah, quick and smooth. It takes Sarah by surprise while feeling simultaneously inevitable, and while she knows she ought to protest-- at the audacity, at the impropriety, at the freaking nerve --she also wants to revel in the feel of Bela's lips, cool and pliant, and Bela's touch, small hands wrapped around Sarah's arms, warm fingerprints seeping into Sarah's bare skin. Sarah leans into the kiss against her better judgement and lets her eyes flutter closed. She kisses back until she hears Bela whimper softly in surprise, and then she lets herself kiss deeper and with the flick of the tip of her tongue.

Bela pulls back too soon. Sarah feels dizzy, and Bela looks her dead in the eye. "I'm sorry," she says.

"For what?" Sarah asks. The kiss was incredible. She still feels breathless. She opens her mouth to keep speaking, and realizes that she feels more than breathless. She feels sick.

And Bela keeps watching her, with a little touch of rue.

"You're not a hunter, are you?" Sarah asks.

"No," Bela admits easily. "And I won't be back, either. Though I do still wish that you could buy me dinner still."

Sarah wants to laugh, but her vision is swimming. Hoodwinked by a pretty girl! she thinks. Un-freaking-believable. Something glints in Bela's hair, and Sarah realizes that she recognizes it: it's stolen. A jewelled comb, part of the Jeanty estate, and, Sarah is pretty sure now, some sort of supernatural artifact that's worth a pretty penny. "You won't get away with this," Sarah mumbles.

Sarah sags to her knees, and Bela catches her, gently leans her sitting against the wall. "I'm sorry to disappoint you," she says, "But I already have."

The last things Sarah remembers is Bela peeling a fine clear layer from her lips and walking away, dark gold hair swinging.

And then everything goes black.

 


End file.
